Sunday, April 20, 2014

Happy Easter!

I hope you're having a wonderfully relaxing Easter day! We've had a wonderfully laid-back holiday, full of all of our favorite things. Of course we had to start the day with a big mug of hot chocolate (really it's just hot milk and Ovaltine):

We've had a lot of wet, rainy weather lately, so we decided an egg hunt in the yard would probably be too messy and gross (mud + chocolate = gross). Instead we did a little egg trail down the hallway to James's Easter basket, which included some candy, but also books and markers.

James was super happy and has declared this day "the BEST day ever!" many times. But he sort of broke my heart when he asked "So, is the Easter Bunny real or did you put all these eggs out?"

The days of fooling my sweet boy are over! I came clean honestly that nope, the Easter Bunny isn't real, but he's a fun idea to play with and make-believe. So far this hasn't translated over to "Is Santa real?" but I have a feeling that will be coming this December. Oh well...I always knew that would be a short, sweet ride!

Speaking of sweet, don't these eggs look beautiful?

Josh threw that one brown egg into the bunch so you can see just how blue and pretty these eggs are by comparison!

These are eggs from our backyard flock of chickens, and many are so bright blue we don't even need to dye them. These come from chickens called "Easter Eggers" which are hybrids of South American Ameraucana chickens. Josh has had only one Ameraucana chicken, but he's kept the blue egg gene alive by incubating eggs and hatching dozens of baby chicks over the years.

One of our other favorite things to do on Sunday is to make a big breakfast or brunch. Josh and I both love to cook, and we cook really well together as a team almost every evening. This morning we tried a new recipe from Gordon Ramsay's Home Cooking show. Josh made the beans and I made the potato cakes:

I was so proud of this meal I took a picture of it! I've wanted to make potato cakes for YEARS, but every time I tried, they would literally melt in the pan into a gooey mess of potato and oil. The trick - add flower until the potatoes feel more like dry cookie dough and fry in only a little oil and butter. YUM!

After this wonderfully relaxing morning, I'm headed downstairs to do more of what I love - quilting!

9 comments:

This post made me feel warm and cozy, and brought back some great memories of the holiday with my boys, now grown. I looooove those eggs. We were getting some of the natural colored ones for a while from my husband's co-worker, and I almost hated to break them for cooking. Happy Easter, Day family!

You little one is growing so fast. And yes, I am not looking forward to my granddaughter not believing. She is almost 9 and we keep it alive in our home somehow, even though some of her friends tell her different. I am sure this will end very soon. Happy Easter to all.

Beautiful eggs and so Eastery!! I was wondering about the potatoe cakes. Are you making yours with mashed potatoes, formed into 'cakes', and then fried? The way I was taught to make them was to beat an egg and incorporate that into the potatoes. The egg will give the potatoes a nice soft yellow color and the egg acts as a binding agent to keep the patty together. You might want to try that the next time.

Hi LJ, yep, that's basically how we did it, although our leftover potatoes were mashed the night before and had 2 yolks in them, along with salt and pepper, butter, and whole milk. The key for getting a nice form and keeping them together was adding flour to the mash until we had just the right amount for the consistency. Gordon Ramsay, where we got the recipe, just used boiled potatoes. I think including the egg made it so much better!

A Little Advice from Leah:

Stop stressing about perfection. Perfection does not exist past 25 inches! Actually, make that 5 inches.

Don't be afraid of your tension dial - it was put there for a reason.

Quilt because it makes you happy, not because you need to "finish this damn quilt!"

If you've never quilted before and are waiting for that perfect day when the kids are grown or you're retired, STOP WAITING! Today is the day, now is the time, get off your butt and do it!

Eat, Quilt, Sleep, Repeat.

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